One Cannot Make Another Happy

Music: Goldberg Variations: Variation 21.
By Johann Sebastian Bach.
Performed by Kimiko Ishizaka at the Free Music Archive
under a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication license.

One cannot make another happy,
Whatever one might do or say,
For happiness remains a choice
Not even love can hope to sway.

The sacrifice of time and strength
And preference and goods may be
Of help, of course, but cannot calm
The winds that roil a restless sea.

Everything one does, like dust,
Transforms the light in which all live.
But happiness is not a gift
It is within one's power to give.

One can only love, and be
A witness to the life that each
At last must live alone, for good
Or ill beyond a lover's reach.

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